The dying beast's whimper faded into a final gurgle. The silence that followed was different, charged with a new tension. It was no longer the passive waiting of the night, but the precarious calm that follows the first exchange of fire. The air itself seemed weighted by the echo of the two *Cracks* and Julius's perfect Breath, a signature too bright in the dark that would not fail to attract other gazes.

Without a word, Julius moved. He quickly searched the beasts' carcasses, his expert eye scanning their misshapen forms. He found nothing useful, only corrupted flesh and brittle bones. A grunt of disgust escaped him. Then, his eyes settled on the largest creature, the one he had cleanly sliced apart. He grabbed one of its hind legs, a mass of muscle and tendons riddled with purple veins, and, with a dry, precise twist, detached the femur. The bone was abnormally long, dense, streaked with black lines like basalt. He spun it in his hand, testing its weight and balance, then tucked it into his belt. It wasn't a sword, but in his fist, it had the deadly heft of a mace.

"We move," he ordered, his voice sharp as a blade. "The lesson is over. Now, it's the road."

Dylan nodded, his muscles still trembling with adrenaline and fatigue. The absorbed gem had given him a reprieve, but he could already feel the bottom of the well, a spiritual dryness lying in wait. He forced himself to breathe deeply, seeking within himself the echo of that taut cord, the resonance of the Breath. It was no longer a terror, but a tool. A terrible tool, but his.

They left the precarious shelter of the cave and the dying fire, plunging into the deeper bosom of the forest. The canopy was so thick it smothered the starlight, plunging them into near-total darkness. Only Dylan's strange perception, this sixth sense awakened to the currents of anima, allowed them to guess the path. He perceived the forest as a tapestry of energetic textures: the cold, persistent glow of the river on their left, the heavy vegetable heat of the trees, and, everywhere, stains of rust and dirty purple moving slowly in the shadows.

"Don't look at them directly," Julius murmured, anticipating his question. His own sense must have been infinitely more acute. "Focus on the path. Stare at them, and they'll feel your attention. They are scavengers, opportunist hunters. They attack what seems weak or wounded."

They advanced with silent speed, Julius in the lead, the bony femur now held low, ready to strike. Dylan followed, his steps becoming more assured. The fear hadn't left him, but it had transformed. It was no longer a paralyzing panic, but a cold concentration in the pit of his stomach, a spur that sharpened his senses. Every crack of a twig, every rustle of leaves was analyzed, sorted.

The first real attack came from above.

A slimy, pale form, like an emaciated monkey with bulging eyes, dropped from a branch with a strident shriek. Dylan perceived its aura before he saw it: a stain of sickly green and voracious avidity. He didn't have time to think. His arm rose, hand open, and he compressed the space in front of him.

Crack.

The sound was muffled, the wave less controlled. It didn't kill the creature, but struck it head-on, hurling it against the trunk of a nearby tree with a sound of breaking bones. It slid to the ground, whimpering weakly.

"Too much energy wasted," Julius commented without even turning around. "You crushed an ant with a boulder. Learn to dose."

Dylan gritted his teeth but nodded. The teaching was brutal, but every word was truth. He breathed, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart.

For several hours, they progressed like this. The forest was a parade of nightmares. They passed bushes with sharp thorns that seemed to follow them with their gaze, bioluminescent mushrooms whose spores created fleeting hallucinations, and slithering beasts with gelatinous bodies that tried to mire them in spongy, acidic mud. Julius dealt with most threats with a terrifying economy of motion. The femur fell, slicing, crushing, shattering, each movement a demonstration of efficient violence. Sometimes, for faster or more distant creatures, he used the Breath – that same perfect, mortal shudder that sliced reality without a sound.

Each time, Dylan watched, recorded, learned. He saw the way Julius harmonized his breathing with the world, the way he embraced the flow of anima before diverting it for his own use.

"Your turn," Julius would say sometimes, when a lower-ranked threat – a third-rank beast, slithering and venomous – presented itself.

And Dylan obeyed. He drew the sword they had recovered earlier. The blade was heavy, poorly balanced for his novice hand. The first contact was brutal. The beast, a kind of giant scorpion with a gleaming carapace, charged. Dylan parried a tail strike as best he could, the impact vibrating the bones in his arm. He counter-attacked, but his thrust was clumsy, the point sliding off the carapace without penetrating.

"It's not a club!" Julius growled, observing with crossed arms. "It's an extension of your will. You don't strike with the metal, you strike with your intent. Guide the blade with your spiritual breath!"

Dylan dodged a second blow, fear in his gut. He inhaled deeply, seeking the cord within. Instead of focusing on brute force, he imagined a filament of anima, thin and sharp, running along the sword's edge. He sketched a new strike, a diagonal this time. He didn't aim for the carapace, he aimed *through* it.

The blade bit. Not with the power of a woodcutter, but with the cold sharpness of a scalpel. It opened a deep gash in the monster's joint, spurting black, thick blood. The beast screamed, recoiled. Dylan, surprised by his own success, pressed on, guiding the blade with this new sensation. The fight was short, messy, but he emerged victorious, the sword sunk into the creature's nerve center.

He was panting, covered in sweat and black blood. Julius approached.

"Better. Next time, kill it in one blow. Two is a luxury you won't always have."

They resumed their march, even faster now. Dylan's determination hardened with each step. The war was no longer a distant abstraction, a vague threat. It was this forest. It was these beasts. It was this necessity to become stronger, faster, more lethal. Every mastered Crack, every well-placed sword strike, was a step closer to the battlefield.

The day finally broke without light.

A sickly pallor filtered through the foliage, painting the forest in a tomb-like grey. The mists thickened, muffling sounds, erasing all direction. Julius stopped suddenly, raised a hand. Dylan froze.

Before them, the earth opened into a circular chasm. Enormous roots descended into it like the fingers of a buried god, and at the very bottom, a faint luminescence was visible: a stagnant lake, green, pulsing like an organ.

"A dead source," Julius said. His voice resonated deeper, tinged with an ancient respect. "They are born when the world bleeds. Beasts come to drink from it, but the water twists them."

Dylan approached, fascinated. The air vibrated, thick, charged with energy. He felt the tension on his skin, as if the world itself was warning him to back away. And yet, he wanted to dive in.

"You want us to purify it?" he asked, ignoring the fear.

Julius let out a short, dry laugh, almost mocking.

"Purify? Do you really think we're capable of that, kid? No. We're going to drain it."

Before Dylan could even understand, Julius had already drawn the black femur and planted its base in the ground. He closed his eyes. The Breath made itself heard—not a Crack this time, but a deep hiss, a dull vibration. The air contracted, space tilted.

Then everything exploded.

The chasm screamed. The dead energy rose in a column, pouring a wave of raw essence around them. Dylan fell to his knees, choking, as his spiritual core gorged itself despite him on this corrupted flow. Visions erupted: faces of ancient Awakened, burned fields, cries of men turned monsters. And at the center of it all, Julius, standing, calm, his golden eyes burning with an almost divine flame.

"Watch closely," Julius shouted over the din. "This is the price of power! What you take, you must endure!"

The ground shook. Dylan felt something tear inside him—a resistance giving way, a limit he had never dared cross. His breath mingled with that of the world. The beats of his heart and the pulsations of the chasm merged.

Then, suddenly, everything ceased.

The green light went out, sucked into an almost perfect silence. Julius pulled the bone from the ground. He shook it like a worn-out tool, his gaze distant.

"One less," he said. "But there will be others. Always."

Dylan slowly straightened up. His hands were shaking. His breath still vibrated with a note he didn't recognize—neither entirely human, nor wholly monstrous.

He looked at Julius, and for the first time, he didn't see a master. He saw a direction. A chasm towards which he was walking with no possibility of return.

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